Douai Manuscript: Annotations on Macbeth

(Aside)
This stage direction and the following one seem to be revisions added by the scribe on a second reading or at a later stage.
takt
For take’t, an original emendation for take (F2).
are … s
Gap: corner of the leaf neatly cut out. The F2 text reads Are made, not mark’d: Where violent sorrow seemes / A Moderne extasie: The Deadmans knell, / Is.
you
Transcription error for your (F2).
it
Scribal omission: should be it is (F2).
is
Transcription error for in (F2).
whe
Stands for when (F2).
chance
Transcription error for chanced (F2).
night
This could be an emendation or an error for light (F2).
quarrel
Textual emendation first attributed to Hanmer. Quarry can, however, mean a heap of dead men; a pile of dead bodies (OED quarry, n.1.2.b).
hail came puffing posts
Hail and came are two textual emendations first attributed to Rowe.
well
Scribal emendation for done (F2).
must
Scribal emendation which changes the meaning.
faint
An original scribal emendation for taint (F2), which is usually understood as lose courage, but this instance is the first citation of the word in this sense in the OED. Faint is an ingenious alternative.
lies
Scribal emendation.
song
The title of the song Black Spirits, &.c. (F2) is omitted, perhaps because it refers to devils, unless because the song is no longer commonly known by the late seventeenth century.
vertue
The choice of vertue instead of Verity. (F2) is an interesting one in light of the Catholic milieu in which the Douai MS was found.
letter
The letter read out by Lady Macbeth in F2 is omitted in the Douai MS.
the aire
The frequent omission of sound and light effects reflects different performance choices, or different performance circumstances.
the aire
This long cut of a convoluted descriptive passage reflects a concern for concision, and a research of dramatic efficacy.
The Porter’s speeches
The Porter’s speeches are almost entirely left out, perhaps because of their flippant references to hell, unless the multiple covert allusions to Jesuits (in the persons of equivocators) were thought offensive in a Catholic milieu. It is also possible, of course, that these rather coarse, comic passages were considered unsuitable in a tragedy for aesthetic reasons in the context of a more neoclassical approach to dramatic genres in the Restoration.
The Porter’s speeches
Same as above. The Porter’s flippant jokes about hell, and his new allusion to Jesuits (in the persons of equivocators), and his praise of drinking (as leading to lechery) might have been thought offensive and inappropriate in a Catholic milieu, although again this passage of farce could have been left out for aesthetic reasons.
filld
fil’d in F3 and F4, but fil’d in F2.
eternall
Emendation fr eterne in all Fs, an archaic form of , eternal. This emendation antedates Pope, who is usually credited as its first author.
Impostures
An emendation for Imposters which predates Capell.
secredst
A transcription mistake in Douai for secrets.
double. &c
The refrain is summarized with &c.
fell
An omission which might have something to do with the difficulty posed by the discussion of grace, especially in connection with the notion of loss that follows.
coming hither
This emendation clears a textual problem in the Folio texts: they heere approach (F1), thy heere approach (F2). Pope emends this passage as here-approach.
all ready
This emendation clarifies the text. F2 has Already.
such sanctity hath
The omission of the word Heaven after hath could be an accidental omission, but it might also testify to a Catholic reluctance to discuss the divine right of kings and the royal touch in the context of contemporary polemic. Note that the adverb heavenly is also left out a few lines down in the line: He hath a heavenly guift of Prophecie (F2).
the gift
This intriguing omission of heavenly might be indicative of a reluctance to include a discussing of prophecy as divinely-inspired in the context of a Catholic institution. Note that the word Heaven was also omitted a few lines above.
but … certaine
An accidental repetition.
sanguine ore
sanguine is an original emendation for a difficult word, over-red in F2, of which, according to OED, this is the sole citation in this sense.
there are 10000
The emendation for is in F2 is first attributed to Rowe.
horses skirt
An original emendation (skirt) for a difficult word, skirr in F2, of which, according to OED, this is the first occurrence in the sense of passing, or riding quickly through.
she should have dy’d hereafter
The passage that follows this line in F2, which has become emblematic of the play for a modern reader, was excised. The scribe might have felt the underlying despair and pessimism of the thought was objectionable.
unbloody
An original emendation for an obscure word in Fs, undeeded, which the OED lists as its one and only occurrence.
unfeeling
An original emendation for an obscure word in Fs, intrenchant. According to the OED this is the unique citation for this meaning.
clallenge
A transcription error for challenge.
moues
A unusual instance in which u is used for v in a text in which both letters are otherwise disambiguated.

Prosopography

Côme Saignol

Côme Saignol is a PhD candidate at Sorbonne University where he is preparing a thesis about the reception of Cyrano de Bergerac. After working several years on Digital Humanities, he created a company named CS Edition & Corpus to assist researchers in classical humanities. His interests include: eighteenth-century theatre, philology, textual alignment, and XML databases.

Eric Rasmussen

Eric Rasmussen is Regents Teaching Professor and Foundation Professor of English at the University of Nevada. He is co-editor with Sir Jonathan Bate of the RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works and general editor, with Paul Werstine, of the New Variorum Shakespeare. He has received the Falstaff Award from PlayShakespeare.com for Best Shakespearean Book of the Year in 2007, 2012, and 2013.

Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

Line Cottegnies

Line Cottegnies teaches early-modern literature at Sorbonne Université. She is the author of a monograph on the politics of wonder in Caroline poetry, LʼÉclipse du regard: la poésie anglais du baroque au classicisme (Droz, 1997), and has co-edited several collections of essays, including Authorial Conquests: Essays on Genre in the Writings of Margaret Cavendish (AUP, 2003, with Nancy Weitz), Women and Curiosity in the Early Modern Period (Brill, 2016), with Sandring Parageau, or Henry V: A Critical Guide (Bloomsbury, 2018), with Karen Britland. She has published on seventeenth-century literature, from Shakespeare and Raleigh to Ahpra Behn and Mary Astell. Her research interests are: early-modern drama and poetry, the politics of translation (between France and England), and women authors of the period. She has also developed a particular interest in editing: she had edited half of Shakespeareʼs plays for the Gallimard bilingual complete works (alone and in collaboration), and, also, Henry IV, Part 2, for The Norton Shakespeare 3 (2016). With Marie-Alice Belle, she has co-edited two Elizabethan translations of Robert Garnier (by Mary Sidney Herbert and Thomas Kyd), published in 2017 in the MHRA Tudor and Stuart Translation Series as Robert Garnier in Elizabethan England. She is currently working on an edition of three Behnʼs translations from the French for the Cambridge edition of Behn’s Complete Works

Navarra Houldin

Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.

William Shakespeare

Bibliography

OED: The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Shakespeare, William. Mr VVilliam Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies: Published according to the true originall copies. London: William Jaggard, 1623. STC 22273. ESTC S111228. DEEP 5081.
Shakespeare, William. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. London: Robert Allot, 1632. STC 22274. ESTC S111233.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

Metadata

Authority title Douai Manuscript: Annotations on Macbeth
Type of text Annotation
Short title Douai Mac: Annotations
Publisher Sorbonne Université and University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project
Source
Annotations written by Line Cottegnies
Editorial declaration Edited according to the Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project Editorial Procedure
Edition Released with The Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project 1.0
Sponsor(s)

The Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project

Anthology Lead: Line Cottegnies. The project is a scientific collaboration between Sorbonne Université and the University of Victoria.
Encoding description Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines
Document status published, peer-reviewed
License/availability This file is licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license, which means that it is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the author, the Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and/or data; (2) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (3) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the Douai Shakespeare Manuscript Project, the editor, and LEMDO. This license allows for pedagogical use of the critical paratexts in the classroom. Images provided by the Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. They can be downloaded and reproduced in scholarly publications and presentations provided that credit is included. Credit must include the phrase: Used by kind permission of the Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Douai, and must include the shelfmark MS 787 and the folio numbers. We ask that a copy of any scholarly publication be sent to the Douai library via email attachment to the Curator, currently Jean Vilbas at jvilbas@ville-douai.fr, or via mail to the following address: Bibliothèque Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 61 Parvis Georges Prêtre, BP 20625, 59506 Douai cedex, France.